


Hell is other people (but you don’t count)

by Teethteethteethteethteethteethteeth



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California (Comics)
Genre: Cherri doesn’t have a great time, Gen, Injury, I’m a liiittle gay for hot chimp, Oh also a lizard is stressed out temporarily but not harmed, Slight waveriding, Violence, cherri picks at his skin a bit too if i remember right, death (of dracs), oops grimacing, uhh friend-on-friend violence :grinacing:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27863541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teethteethteethteethteethteethteeth/pseuds/Teethteethteethteethteethteethteeth
Summary: Cherri and Chimp backstory!
Relationships: Agent Cherri Cola & DJ Hot Chimp
Comments: 14
Kudos: 9





	Hell is other people (but you don’t count)

He doesn’t quite fit in with this crowd, and he knows it, a bunch of cutthroat not-quite-killjoys who’ve never seen the inside of a reeducation facility. He’s too lucid for them, sometimes not lucid enough. But they’re vicious and bitter, and he’s hungry for blood, so he slips right in and makes his place, earns the respect of the others when he throws down a Drac mask, face torn right off the skull of whatever poor soul had once dwelt underneath. 

_They_ celebrate the kill, and all the hundreds after, and nobody notices when Agent Cherri Cola slips away in the dark each night, scraping sand across his body, the palm of his hand, in the attempt to exorcise the ever-lingering feeling of blood slipping through his fingers, of flesh tearing and ripping as he laughs. But of course, the rough sand only succeeds at turning memory-blood to real blood, pooling up in the hollow of his palm, trickling through his fingers and clumping his hair together as he runs his hand through it, the _one_ nervous habit he’s never been able to break. (Or, that’s what he’d like to pretend)

If he’s ever been good at anything, it’s the fighting, the lack of fucking hesitation as he kills, with a blaster, a blade, or most often, nothing but his fist, his fingers gouging and tearing at eyeballs and arteries. He’s lost count of all the people he’s killed, lost his definition of who counts as a person. Oh well. He’s got a purpose, and that’s better than the alternative. He doesn’t want to think about the burns dashed across his skin. Without thinking, he digs his nails into the scar tissue and tears into it, leaving bloody smears across his face, what’s left of his right arm. He hisses as the fresh cuts hit the air and sting, dropping down onto the cooling sands because _everything is too much_ and standing is one less thing he has to do. The stars spin above him, dipping and twirling through the sky in dizzying patterns, and he closes his eyes to block them out. 

It’s light again when he next opens them, has been for a while, by the position of the sun in the sky. He only rolls over, turning onto his stomach to block out the light. The sun _burns_ in a way that’s so much more than any sensation, burns in a way that knocks the air from his lungs, wraps him up in what almost feels like love.

* * *

“Get up.”

Cherri blinks, raises his head enough to see Hot Chimp’s boots, and sinks right back down into the sand. 

“No.” She hauls him up anyways, where he sags in their grip, the whites of his eyes tinged red. “Fuck you.”

“Yeah, fuck you too, Cherri.” Tone bored, Hot Chimp hoists him easily over her shoulder. He doesn’t fight them, and she hauls him off to their shared tent where she’ll bandage his wounds and call him a coward, not unkindly.

* * *

It’s Cherri who wakes up first, the next day, earning him a few quiet moments to watch Hot Chimp sleep, expression so much softer than it ever is awake. Thinking about that makes him sad, though, so he shakes the thought from his mind, spotting a small brown lizard clinging to the fabric roof of their tent. He cups his hand beneath it, scooping it off and slipping it through the collar of Hot Chimp’s shirt, sitting back on his sleeping bag to watch them wake up all lizard-ed. 

Eventually, she sits up calmly, fishes the lizard out of her shirt and points it to the partially-open tent flap, before lunging at Cherri. Cherri giggles, ducking and rolling out of her way in the too-small tent, and she grabs him by the shoulders and slams him to the ground with a grin. Cherri kicks at her ineffectually, driving a knee into her ribs, and she winces but does not give in, even as Cherri attempts to thrash free, only letting up as Cherri bites down on her wrist hard enough to draw blood. The two of them retreat to separate corners of the tent to catch their breaths. 

The truce they make is uneasy, their friendship more forged in mutual violence than anything else. When Cherri leaves, Hot Chimp won’t follow him.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment below, and come find me on tumblr @wishiwasthemoon-tonight!
> 
> This started out as Feral Twitter Cherri, but quickly turned into Sadsack Cherri, oh well :) I love him either way


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